I feel like a real beekeeper now I have collected my first swarm from a tree

[clare p]

On Friday i did my first AS and seems successful, even though they swarmed 2 hours after the AS and then returned to the hive and have stayed put since.

Today I thought both hives were going to swarm again, but could not think of a reason.
The air was thick with bees and they were flying from one hive to the other then swarmed up to the highest leylandii they could find (at least 25 feet high). I called upon my neighbour to help hold the ladder, I climbed up, shook them into an empty "bees in the post box" with one brood frame in, waited with the lid open for 5 mins whilst the stragglers flew in to join the queen, climbed down and we had a peep, they covered both sides of the brood frame and sides of the box so just lifted them into the new brood box, shook the last few in closed up the roof and gave myself a bit of a proud pat on the back.
It was so exciting! and I really felt I knew what I was doing, A lot is down to watching the clips on Youtube and from the info on this site!
And my neighbour, Pete, was a bit impressed and could not wait to tell his mates what he had done,

I should add that they were not from my hive, I live close to a beekeeper who is a more natural beekeeper and allows the bees to swarm. I like their methods and take a lot of advice from them, whilst keeping a foot in both camps (if you know what I mean) and ....... this is the second swarm I have caught at home and I am dusting down my old hives as I think there may be more

I am now going to change my status to custodian of 4!! colonies
Love Clare
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[Midland Beek]

Artificial swarming has its problems;-

You can leave a queen cell in the queenright part of the split.

And the problem with the queenless part of the split, ie. the bit with the queen cell(s), is reducing the queen cells to only one. You can miss queen cells, and once you have left one the bees might raise additional queen cells in the emergency kind of way.

 

[simonf]

well done clare, rather you than me up a ladder.

 

[Silly Bee]

Well done Clare, I think catching swarms is the fun part.

 

[clare p]

Artificial swarming has its problems;-

You can leave a queen cell in the queenright part of the split.

And the problem with the queenless part of the split, ie. the bit with the queen cell(s), is reducing the queen cells to only one. You can miss queen cells, and once you have left one the bees might raise additional queen cells in the emergency kind of way.

Hi Midland beek.

Thanks for the advice

We were very thorough searching for a queen cell on the 2 frames we put in, but still had my doubts, especially when they swarmed post AS

They had swarmed on the 2 previous days at the same time 1.30 but I believe the queen had clipped wings so they returned each time.
What I suspect is that the AS we performed was so slick that 50 mins later they still had not realised that they had "been" swarmed, one of them checked their watch and they were just creatures of habit, and away they went.............

Cheers Clare